	    		    Civilization II File

			 Vikings - Across the Oceans

		   Made by Mathias Kster in the Year 2001

		        Email: kaktusdh@worldonline.nl 
		Webpage: http://buerger.metropolis.de/mathiashk

				-Introduction
				-Installation
				-Events Change
				-The Players
				 -Norwegians
				 -Danes
				 -Anglo-Saxons
				 -Franks
				 -Germans
				 -Inuit
				 -Algonkin
				  -Barbarians
				-Objectives
				-Units
				-Limitations
				-Bugs
				-Credits
				-Final remarks
				-Comments

INTRODUCTION:

This is my 3rd scenario that I made. Following up on the historic scheme I used in my second
scenario "Death and Resurrection of an Empire" or short "Daroae" I again created a scenario 
based on an important historic epoche. I am not the first to make a scenario about the 
Age of the Viking neither do I doubt that I am the last. I do, however, hope that I have created
a scenario that is different from most others in it's very own unique way and its many new and
existing features. Most ideas I used are not new and have been used before, some ideas have been
around for quite some time but where never used to my knowledge and some others again are, I hope,
totally new.


INSTALLATION:

Make a folder in your Civ II Scenario-folder and name it "Vikings" or whatever. Put all the
files in there. For the sounds make a subfolder in "Vikings" and name it Sound. Put all the
sound-files in it.

Attention: In order for the scenario to work you need to have at least the Fantastic Worlds
version of Civ II installed on your computer!


EVENTS CHANGE:

In order to get what I wanted, the division of the Carolingian Empire, I had to think of some
other way to represent this than the split empire feature in the normal Civ game.
Therefore I had to use two different event files. One representing the situation before the
division and one for afterwards. Because of that you will have to save the game and change the
event files in turn 95. Don't worry, an event will notify you in time and tell you what to do.

There are two ways for you to do this.

1) There are TWO Setupfiles. SetupGer.bat for all those using the German Civ 2 Version and
SetupEng.bat for all those using the Englisch/American Version.

BEFORE you start you have to run the Setupfile and chose Option  1 . Only when you have done
this you can load the scenario!

NOTE for GERMAN Version: Ihr braucht NICHT die events.txt in events.ger umzubennen. 
			 Das macht der Batchfile.
			 Ihr msst aber trotzdem die anderen *.txt Dateien (z.B. Rules.txt)
			 kopieren und in  *.ger (z.B Rules.ger) umbennen!

For the events-change save the game. Exit the Szenario. Run the appropiate Batchfile
and chose Option  2  . Now move the save and scenario file onto the Delevent.exe file.
Now you can load the save and continue to play.

DON'T ever change the names of the event and cities files!


...and for the purists who want full controll... :-)

2) To make certain everything runs fine, here and explanation. Save your game in turn 95 after 
the event that tells you to has appeared. Exit the game and rename the first events file 
events.txt to something else and then rename event2.txt to events.txt. Then for all safety drag
and drop the *.sav, yes the Save-File, file onto the Delevent.exe. Also rename the cities.bmp to 
cities0.bmp and cities2.bmp to cities.bmp. This will change the flags and colors.

Now start your save file and continue to play.

If you want to start a new game do not forget to rename the event files back to their original
names!!!


THE PLAYERS:

NORWEGIANS: Resource-poor and small their primary aim is to establish control over the whole of
modern Norway and quickly switch to Monarchy. Once control of Norway is achieved they should turn
their attention towards the Anglo-Saxons and plunder them. Don't conquer them too soon, it will
be more profitable to use them as a money making machine. You will need all your profits to defend
yourself against the Carolingian Empire later(Franks and Germans) and the Danes. Push for a 
permanent presence in Iceland, Greenland and the coasts of Northern America soon, it will yield
great profit and trade to support your expansion in Europe.

Recommended for play!

DANES: Take control of Northern Germany and the coast of the Benelux region, then establish a small
outpost in England to raid the Anglo-Saxons and extort money from them. Once you feel strong enough
expand into Sweden and southern Norway and be sure to keep the Norwegians at bay once you invade
Norway. Try to found a city in northern France, the region of Normandy by A.D. 911 to secure the
channel crossing for you. Again, the oceans hold great riches if you know where to look!

Recommended for play!

ANGLO-SAXONS: Punch-bag of the Norwegians and Danes. It will be very hard to survive the Viking
raids and your choices are limited. No new units will become available with one exception. Only
the common units like ships and siege waepons will become researchable. 

Not recommended for play!

FRANKS: Franks and Germans are used at the start of this scenario to represent the Carolingian
Empire of Charlemagne. Both are allied at the beginning and will remain so thanks to the events
at least until AD 887. They have a more or less established civlization but no more lands to expand
to besides Northern Spain. After AD 887 they might get into war with the Germans who can defeat
them easily. The Anglo-Saxons should not be a major threat to you.

GERMANS: The same as with the Franks politically seen at the start of this scenario. Though the
Germand will become a quite powerful nation later and can easily wipe the Franks out. The only
way to expand to is the east where there are many independent tribes and enemies. It will not
be easy to force a profitable settlement here in the light of repetetive Avar inroads and little
room to maneuvre. Their northern border area, once conquered, will be threatend by the Danes who
have a great Defense at home.

INUIT: Not meant to be played, only there to serve as an opponent for the other tribes once they
reach America.

ALGONKIN: Not meant to be played, only there to serve as an opponent for the other tribes once
they reach America.

BARBARIANS: Barbarians are used to represent all the minor tribes that this scenario does not
focus on. Considering the time period represented in this scenario most of them can rightfully
be called Barbarians, as most of them were in that time. Conquering Barbarians cities is an easy
and mostly historically correct way to expand you empire. Different kinds of units are present
in the various Barbarian cities and if you do not occupy some of the important cities it can lead
to quite problemlaid future and an unneceassary annoyance. At time they can be a threat to reckon
with and underestimating them would be unwise because they can easily plunder you borders and 
terrain. As a general rule you should always gard your borders with care, no matter where...


OBJECTIVES: This game does not use the objectives system as many others. Instead your objective
is to conquer as much of the know world as possible and to establish you dominance over the 
others. Conflict will be a certainty in Europe, the scars resources and population pressure will
force you to expand at your neighbours expense. The Germans are in a slighly better position for
this because Eastern Europe is not yet colonised but instead is roamed by wild Barbarians that 
might be a threat to reckon with.
If you are one of the two Viking tribes your strategy should be plundering your neighbours time
and time again until there is nothing left to plunder. City improvements like the Merchants Home
or Town Treasury are only there to be plundered, they serve no other purpose, cost no 
maintainence so the AI won't sell them, but have a shield production cost of 500 that makes it
worthwhile plundering(selling) them. The same with the normal city improvments...
Plundering is one of the main aspects of the game, if you kill any kind of Merchant unit you will
get profits, also when attacking the Monk unit.
At the same time you can sail to America and use this to make great profit, as well. The rich 
resources of Polar Bears and Whales for example will make the trip worth it. Colonisation of 
North America might be a good choice when you are the Vikings. Your Oversea Colonisation 
improvment will allow you rapid expansion once you have build you first colony over there. 

But beware of the natives!

I allowed negotiations for most tribes to make the entire thing even more interesting, you can 
also use Monks(Diplomats) to make your enemies life miserable.


UNITS: Virtually every Unit you will encounter has been changed. Listing all of them here would
take away some of the joy of exploring but also was simply too much work for me to do. Yes, I was
very lazy...
Check you War Minister to see how good your own units are. Units that can be built by more or
less everyone are listed in the PEDIA, but since most Units are unique to only a few Tribes they
are not. However, back in the Dark Ages few people knew how good their enemy was. Consider this
a touch towards reality.


LIMITATIONS/SPECIALS: Unfortunatly I can only use 7 civs, this a limit that plagues all scenario
designers. Because of this I had to remove the Swedes from play since they were not as influential
in Western Europe at the time as the Norwegians and Danes.
Also I could not simulate the division of the Carolingian Empire easily so I had to use a trick.
They are two civs, Franks and Germans, they are allied and really love each other but they cannot
talk to each other to prevent them from breaking apart as one force to soon. When the historical
time come they will be divided by events. That's why you have to change the events files in turn 
95.


BUGS: As of now there are no real bugs. The only thing is that accourding to the diplomacy screen
AI nations will lose contact to some other AI civs after some time. But it does not hinder gameplay
greatly for the Human Player.


CREDITS: First of all a great thank you should go to my four playtesters who's relentless work
made sure to make this scenario a great one! 

Playtesters were:

Willi Gross - who loves the Danish Axeman ;-)
Arne (AroSch)
Bernd Brosing
Maciej Czyz

There are many sources I bored from. First of all the websites and books that gave me
the information I needed to make this scenario. You can find Links to all the websites I used
and many more on my Civ II Website.

I borrowed many grafics from other sources. I have listed all the once I know of below.
If you think I missed out on you please let me know!


All the INUIT Units were made by Arne (AroSch), the animals and siege weapons from Bernd, 
the Ramm and ships by Harlan Thompson.
The FRANCO-GERMAN City Style was made by Bernd Brosing (Bebro).
The DANISH City Style was made by Bernd and me together, he made it look great, not just good.
Some FLAGS are from Bernds Cross&Cresent, some are modified by my and some new.
Many of the ICONS are either made by me, taken from Bernd and modified or fro other sources.
The TERRAIN is from many different sources, some new, some modified some from Bernd.
All UNITS with MHK in their positon field have been made by me.
Bernd also made the Batch-File...

The MAP was made by me.


FINAL REMARKS: Again it has taken my an incredible amount of time to finish a scenario. One would
have guessed that taking on my 3rd project would have meant I can go along faster because of my
experience from the last 2 scenario. Well, I didn't and my final exams and often a lack of
motivation to continue the work and simple lazyness have streched the worktime a lot. I tried
many things that were new for me, like allowing negotiation, diplomats, unique units and partially
divergent tech trees, events and conquest based research and a lot more...

I certainly hope that you will enjoy this scenario as much as many have enjoyed my other two.
If there are things in the scenario that seem odd, they are suppossed to be like that. If you
still think you found a mistake or Bug feel free to contact me.

I have made two other Scenarios that can be found on my own website and various others;

1. "The Fall of the Kraeikian Empire"    A Fantasy Scenario
2. "Death and Resurrection of an Empire" A historical scenario about the Byzantine Empire
					 1204 until its end in 1453.


COMMENTS:
For comments, suggestions, advice, hard currencies or if just want to tell me how 
great my scenario is send me an email to kaktusdh@worldonline.nl or try contacting
me at the Apolyton Forums or the Forum of the German Civilization II Webring.

I do prefer email however...


Enjoy the game!

Mathias
